


In The Wrong Place

by babel



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-07-18
Packaged: 2017-12-20 15:41:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babel/pseuds/babel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Were you and Alex ever close?" Tim asks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Wrong Place

"Were you and Alex ever close?" Tim asks. 

They've been at this motel for a few hours now. The TV's on the weather channel, muted. There's a bad storm coming in along the east coast up toward Virginia, and the pictures of early rainfall remind Jay of the smell of earth and a scene they never shot and videos he never understood.

"No," he says.

* * *

"But the whole point--no, listen," Alex is saying. They're somewhere loud, maybe a party or restaurant or something, but Jay doesn't remember where anymore. He just remembers Alex saying, "The whole point of the movie is how, you know, growing up and doing all the things you're supposed to do when you grow up like moving away and, and stuff like that... It's about how doing what you're supposed to do can be a bad thing, right? And then you get to this point where you can remember a time--when you can pinpoint a time when, if things had happened differently, your life would be different. Better, maybe. Like, you did something wrong, and now you're in the wrong place, and you can't go back because of that one thing that happened."

Jay is humoring him with strained interest, "Is it autobiographical?"

"Sort of. I mean," He laughs. He used to laugh a lot. "Everything is, right?"

"So there's some point in your life you'd want to change?"

Alex looks off somewhere, his eyes sort of out of focus, and Jay remembers that clearly. He remembers Alex saying, "maybe" and rubbing his nose. He remembers Alex frowning at the red on his hand. "I get nose bleeds," he says, and Jay finds a napkin for him.

* * *

Jay's been driving for hours, and he asks, "What do you remember about the movie?"

"What movie?" Tim sounds like maybe he was falling asleep against the window, and Jay wishes he'd stayed quiet.

"The movie. Alex's movie. What do you remember about it?

Tim sniffs and presses back against the headrest. "I remember Alex yelling a lot toward the end. And, uh. And Brian making smartass remarks all the time, because his character was so mopy and boring. Why are you asking about _that_?"

"I've just been thinking about it lately. Like, maybe he was trying to say something with it."

"Does it matter?"

Tim's watching him like he wants to see inside his skull, and Jay just shakes his head. "I don't know. I'm tired. Let's stop somewhere."

* * *

"I want the ending to be kind of ambiguous."

They are in Alex's room. Alex is on the bed, propped up on some pillows, and Jay is in the desk chair swivelling back and forth and looking up at the ceiling. "Don't those just pisse people off?"

"People who go to action movies, sure. I'd like to think those kind of people aren't our audience."

"Why ambiguous, though?"

Alex huffs a sigh, and Jay smiles because he can tell that he's flustered. "Okay, well. We've got Brian who came back to his hometown, right? But since he left it, he doesn't fit in anymore. But he left his new life too, to come back home. So, even if he does go back to that, is he going to fit in _there_ anymore? I mean, he can't just get the girl and that's the end. That's not the kind of movie I want to make."

"Maybe we could tie it back to that idea you were talking about before?"

"Which one?"

"The point in his life were things could've been different." Jay tries to remember how Alex put it. "You know, the thing that could've put him in the right place instead of having two wrong places."

Alex is quiet for a moment, then he nods. "Yeah... Yeah. Okay, we could show everything going wrong when he comes back home, but then we go back to that point at the end, and the audience isn't sure. Does he choose to go through it all again, or does he make a different choice?" He furrows his brow. "Is that too... I don't know."

"No, I think it's good. Is it worth knowing where you came from and who used to matter to you, or do you just leave it all behind so you can be something new? I think people will relate to that."

"It seems kind of escapist, though." Alex is playing with a loose thread on the corner of one of his pillows. "Being able to go back to that point. Like, I don't know. Like, if I had different parents, or if she'd left him or, uh, something. It's kind of childish, isn't it?"

Jay shrugs. "I still think about that kind of thing. Don't you?"

* * *

He watches the video over and over again.

_Look, I don't want to talk about this again._

Alex gives him the tapes, he leaves, then Alex waits. Why is he waiting? Why doesn't he knock him out before he leaves the house? Why does he do it at all?

It doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense.

"Hey," Tim says quietly. It's dark in the hotel room except for the wavering light of the computer screen.

_Hey, Jay. Hold on._

"Maybe you should try to get some sleep, huh?"

Jay restarts the video.

"You've watched this, like, a million times. I don't think there's anything there that--"

Jay slams his hand against the table, making the lamp on it sway. "I just want this _one answer_. I just want to know this one thing. I just want to know _why_ he waited."

Tim nods a little, and he watches the video with Jay.

_Hey, Jay. Hold on._

"It's not your fault he ended up like this," Tim says.

Jay restarts the video. It's near dawn when he falls asleep in the chair.

_Hey, Jay..._

* * *

"What are you going to do with all these tapes?"

Alex looks at the tape. His lip twitches in a faint sneer, and all Jay can think about is sitting in Alex's room with him, talking about this movie. All he can remember is how excited Alex used to get whenever he talked about it. How personal it was to him.

"Burn them," he says.

Jay looks at the bags of tapes, then he looks at Alex. His eyes are unfocused, like before. Like whenever Alex starts talking about the past. 

"Okay," Jay says. "I'll help."


End file.
